is it possible to refer to a column/table name by using a string? Something like SELECT * FROM 'my_table'::table_name_t?
The reason I'm asking: I have a table geometry_columns with some geometry tables. And I would like to know which objects are within a certain radius.
Thanks, Philip
You will need a (stored) function to achieve this. The function takes the table name as an argument, creates the SQL dynamically and then returns the result of the SELECT based on that query.
here are some examples (not exactly what you need, but they should get you headed in the right direction):
http://forums.devshed.com/postgresql-help-21/plpgsql-variable-representing-table-name-137201.html
Dynamic column in SELECT statement postgres
I don't think you can do that directly. I think you would have to build the select statement from another statement or piece of code, then execute the resulting statement.
Related
I'm using a PostgreSQL with a Go driver. Sometimes I need to query not existing fields, just to check - maybe something exists in a DB. Before querying I can't tell whether that field exists. Example:
where size=10 or length=10
By default I get an error column "length" does not exist, however, the size column could exist and I could get some results.
Is it possible to handle such cases to return what is possible?
EDIT:
Yes, I could get all the existing columns first. But the initial queries can be rather complex and not created by me directly, I can only modify them.
That means the query can be simple like the previous example and can be much more complex like this:
WHERE size=10 OR (length=10 AND n='example') OR (c BETWEEN 1 and 5 AND p='Mars')
If missing columns are length and c - does that mean I have to parse the SQL, split it by OR (or other operators), check every part of the query, then remove any part with missing columns - and in the end to generate a new SQL query?
Any easier way?
I would try to check within information schema first
"select column_name from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS where table_name ='table_name';"
And then based on result do query
Why don't you get a list of columns that are in the table first? Like this
select column_name
from information_schema.columns
where table_name = 'table_name' and (column_name = 'size' or column_name = 'length');
The result will be the columns that exist.
There is no way to do what you want, except for constructing an SQL string from the list of available columns, which can be got by querying information_schema.columns.
SQL statements are parsed before they are executed, and there is no conditional compilation or no short-circuiting, so you get an error if a non-existing column is referenced.
I have a table named conditions on a schema named test. I created a hypertable and inserted hundreds of rows.
When I run select show_chunks(), it works and displays chunks but I cannot use the table name as parameter as suggested in the manual. This does not work:
SELECT show_chunks("test"."conditions");
How can I fix this?
Ps: I want to query the chunk itself by its name? How can I do this?
The show_chunks expects a regclass, which depending on your current search path means you need to schema qualify the table.
The following should work:
SELECT public.show_chunks('test.conditions');
The double quotes are only necessary if your table is a delimited identifier, for example if your tablename contains a space, you would need to add the double quotes for the identifier. You will still need to wrap it in single quotes though:
SELECT public.show_chunks('test."equipment conditions"');
SELECT public.show_chunks('"test schema"."equipment conditions"');
For more information about identifier quoting:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-IDENTIFIERS
Edit: Addressing the PS:
I want to query the chunk itself by its name? How can I do this?
feike=# SELECT public.show_chunks('test.conditions');
show_chunks
--------------------------------------------
_timescaledb_internal._hyper_28_1176_chunk
_timescaledb_internal._hyper_28_1177_chunk
[...]
SELECT * FROM _timescaledb_internal._hyper_28_1176_chunk;
How can I know table (table_1) is being used in which all UDF?
Below query gives me table's details:
SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables;
Below Query gives UDF details:
select * FROM pg_proc;
But how can I know that table1 is used in which all UDF?
A string search in the prosrc column of pg_proc is the only way if you want to find dependencies between functions and tables.
Of course that is not very satisfying, because it would be rather difficult to say if – say – an occurrence of table_1 is a reference to the table or a variable name. Also, you cannot find the source of C functions in the catalog.
To get a reliable answer, you would need insight into the language in which the function is written, and here is the core of the problem: PostgreSQL does not have any insight into the language! PostgreSQL's fabled extensibility allows you to define new languages for functions, and only the language handler knows how to interpret the string that is the function body. That also holds for PL/pgSQL which is shipped with PostgreSQL.
That is also the reason why there are no pg_depend entries for objects used in functions.
In my table results from column work_time (interval type) display as 200:00:00. Is it possible to cut the seconds part, so it will be displayed as 200:00? Or, even better: 200h00min (I've seen it accepts h unit in insert so why not load it like this?).
Preferably, by altering work_time column, not by changing the select query.
This is not something you should do by altering a column but by changing the select query in some way. If you change the column you are changing storage and functional uses, and that's not good. To change it on output, you need to modify how it is retrieved.
You have two basic options. The first is to modify your select queries directly, using to_char(myintervalcol, 'HH24:MI')
However if your issue is that you have a common format you want to have universal access to in your select query, PostgreSQL has a neat trick I call "table methods." You can attach a function to a table in such a way that you can call it in a similar (but not quite identical) syntax to a new column. In this case you would do something like:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION myinterval_nosecs(mytable) RETURNS text LANGUAGE SQL
IMMUTABLE AS
$$
SELECT to_char($1.myintervalcol, 'HH24:MI');
$$;
This works on the row input, not on the underlying table. As it always returns the same information for the same input, you can mark it immutable and even index the output (meaning it can be run at plan time and indexed used).
To call this, you'd do something like:
SELECT myinterval_nosecs(m) FROM mytable m;
But you can then use the special syntax above to rewrite that as:
SELECT m.myinterval_nosecs FROM mytable m;
Note that since myinterval_nosecs is a function you cannot omit the m. at the beginning. This is because the query planner will rewrite the query in the former syntax and will not guess as to which relation you mean to run it against.
Is it possible to declare a variable within a View? For example:
Declare #SomeVar varchar(8) = 'something'
gives me the syntax error:
Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'Declare'.
You are correct. Local variables are not allowed in a VIEW.
You can set a local variable in a table valued function, which returns a result set (like a view does.)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191165.aspx
e.g.
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.udf_foo()
RETURNS #ret TABLE (col INT)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #myvar INT;
SELECT #myvar = 1;
INSERT INTO #ret SELECT #myvar;
RETURN;
END;
GO
SELECT * FROM dbo.udf_foo();
GO
You could use WITH to define your expressions. Then do a simple Sub-SELECT to access those definitions.
CREATE VIEW MyView
AS
WITH MyVars (SomeVar, Var2)
AS (
SELECT
'something' AS 'SomeVar',
123 AS 'Var2'
)
SELECT *
FROM MyTable
WHERE x = (SELECT SomeVar FROM MyVars)
EDIT: I tried using a CTE on my previous answer which was incorrect, as pointed out by #bummi. This option should work instead:
Here's one option using a CROSS APPLY, to kind of work around this problem:
SELECT st.Value, Constants.CONSTANT_ONE, Constants.CONSTANT_TWO
FROM SomeTable st
CROSS APPLY (
SELECT 'Value1' AS CONSTANT_ONE,
'Value2' AS CONSTANT_TWO
) Constants
#datenstation had the correct concept. Here is a working example that uses CTE to cache variable's names:
CREATE VIEW vwImportant_Users AS
WITH params AS (
SELECT
varType='%Admin%',
varMinStatus=1)
SELECT status, name
FROM sys.sysusers, params
WHERE status > varMinStatus OR name LIKE varType
SELECT * FROM vwImportant_Users
also via JOIN
WITH params AS ( SELECT varType='%Admin%', varMinStatus=1)
SELECT status, name
FROM sys.sysusers INNER JOIN params ON 1=1
WHERE status > varMinStatus OR name LIKE varType
also via CROSS APPLY
WITH params AS ( SELECT varType='%Admin%', varMinStatus=1)
SELECT status, name
FROM sys.sysusers CROSS APPLY params
WHERE status > varMinStatus OR name LIKE varType
Yes this is correct, you can't have variables in views
(there are other restrictions too).
Views can be used for cases where the result can be replaced with a select statement.
Using functions as spencer7593 mentioned is a correct approach for dynamic data. For static data, a more performant approach which is consistent with SQL data design (versus the anti-pattern of writting massive procedural code in sprocs) is to create a separate table with the static values and join to it. This is extremely beneficial from a performace perspective since the SQL Engine can build effective execution plans around a JOIN, and you have the potential to add indexes as well if needed.
The disadvantage of using functions (or any inline calculated values) is the callout happens for every potential row returned, which is costly. Why? Because SQL has to first create a full dataset with the calculated values and then apply the WHERE clause to that dataset.
Nine times out of ten you should not need dynamically calculated cell values in your queries. Its much better to figure out what you will need, then design a data model that supports it, and populate that data model with semi-dynamic data (via batch jobs for instance) and use the SQL Engine to do the heavy lifting via standard SQL.
What I do is create a view that performs the same select as the table variable and link that view into the second view. So a view can select from another view. This achieves the same result
How often do you need to refresh the view? I have a similar case where the new data comes once a month; then I have to load it, and during the loading processes I have to create new tables. At that moment I alter my view to consider the changes.
I used as base the information in this other question:
Create View Dynamically & synonyms
In there, it is proposed to do it 2 ways:
using synonyms.
Using dynamic SQL to create view (this is what helped me achieve my result).